The new study by Prof. Roland Hodler and Research Assistant, Anna Breuderle, from the School of Economics and Political Science at the University of St. Gallen, found that of the 16,000 infants killed within the first month of their life in 2012, 70 per cent – that is around 11,000 infants – would have survived their first year in the absence of oil spills.

Nigeria’s First Lady, Aisha Buhari, is not accustomed to being economical with the truth. She demonstrated this once more in her fulmination against the abysmal condition of the State House Clinic, Abuja, where she had sought medical remedy recently. She revealed that its X-ray machine was not functional, just as there were no ordinary syringes available.

As help could not come from the hospital, she told her bewildered audience at a forum on Monday, another hospital set up by foreigners came to her rescue.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed that there are 3,600 communities in Niger State which lack basic health facilities and social amenities.

Tagging those communities hard-to-reach, UNICEF has said that although the international donor partner seeks to provide health services to all the communities, it has only been able to reach out to 850 communities in 17 local government areas of the state.